Simon G's Blog

Exponential Organizations by Salim Ismail, Michael S. Malone and Yuri Van Geest contains lots of useful information about how to give your organisation a chance of survival (be it a new one or an existing one of any size). It was repetitive at times and at points it felt like a Singularity University sales pitch but there was sufficient useful content for me to deem it a worthy read. My key takeaways: "Once any domain, discipline, technology or industry becomes information-enabled and powered by information flows, its price/performance begins doubling approximately annually."  Ray Kurzweil Rather than owning assets or workforces and incrementally seeing a return on those assets, Exponential Organisations (ExOs) leverage external resources (people, systems, machines etc.) to achieve their objectives. An exception to this is for scarce resources and assets. Maintaining a small core allows significant flexibility.  It also brings in fresh perspectives and expertise. E...

The Messages application wasn't working for me on macOS and I was wanting it to work with my Google Chat / Talk / Hangouts service. It appears that with macOS High Sierra a workaround is required. After struggling to get it going I finally got it going after some searching on the Internet and trying a couple of supposed fixes. What ended up working for me were the instructions on  https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/gtalk-messages-solution-found-high-sierra.2073393/ with a couple of tweaks. The tweaks were required to support 2FA which is enabled on my account. The instructions, repeated here so that I can find them again if required and to assist others having the same problem, are as follows: Go to System Preferences / Internet Accounts and delete your google account. Open Terminal and run the following commands (Warning: This will delete your history!): find ~/Library/Preferences -name "*iChat*" -delete rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Messages rm -rf...

The Lean Startup is a book I have been meaning to read for years and never got around to. It contains lots of useful advice and good case studies explaining experiences of what has and hasn't work. The book is oriented towards software development startups (and software development innovation in general in any sized organisation) and could have easily been condensed into a third its size. Key takeaways: Build, Measure, Learn (go through this loop as fast as you can) Use validated learning and measure using actionable metrics, not vanity metrics. Use cohort analysis. Do split testing to measure what matters to customers Build a Minimal Viable Product (MVP), gain quick feedback from customers, learn quickly and evolve as required Use 5 whys for root cause analysis and identifying what to target in terms of improvements

Sprint is a superb book that is very easy to read, with real world examples of how to apply the techniques discussed. I have taken some of the concepts discussed and am applying them to other activities beyond a 5 day Sprint process. Thoroughly recommended.

I’ve spent a bit of time at the CIO Summit  in Auckland over the past couple of days and below is a synopsis from the sessions I attended. Key overall themes Digital Transformation (DX) is still a key focus of organisations, with cultural change being one of the most fundamental shifts. Increased use of Cloud/“as a Service” models is prevalent across most organisations. Customer-centricity as opposed to other models such as Product-centric. Connections & ecosystems (internal and external to organisations) is key to DX, with APIs being a key enabler. Smart use of data is becoming increasingly important to drive great customer experiences. Further detail Trends & Insights “The 3rd platform is the key to creating new value” IDG Mobility, Big Data/Analytics, Cloud, Social “By 2020, over 2/3 of Enterprise IT and software spending will be for cloud-based offerings” IDG “70% of CIOs have a cloud first strategy” IDG “By 2019, 42% of IoT data will be process...

Today was the second and final day of the IT & Enterprise Architecture Conference 2015. Below is a summary of my key notes. Going beyond IT. What EA can really mean for your organisation John Pearson, Business Architect, IAG Consider the Demand vs Supply side of architecture IAG is using traditional TOGAF domains (Information, Application, Technology Infrastructure and Security) with business architecture being used to better align with the demand from the business Enterprise Business Motivation Model (EBMM) - Accenture, Nick Malik ( http://www.motivationmodel.com/ ) anchor diagram for business architecture using to understand change impact Bake business architecture approaches in early in the architecture journey Understand the business, its priorities and where value can be added Understand architecture capabilities in service to the business Understand key stakeholder n...

Today I attended the first day of the  IT & Enterprise Architecture Conference  2015 at the Crowne Plaza in Auckland. This was my first time at the event and it was a good opportunity to network with the wider IT & Enterprise Architecture community. Below is a summary of my key notes. Setting the scene: Enterprise Architecture 2015-2025 Craig Pitout, Senior Manager IT Advisory, EY ( @CraigPitout ) Cloud, Mobility, Big Data and Social Media are key forces of Digital Disruption Themes affecting enterprise agility Customer centric Product centric Internal efficiency Regulatory requirements Force for uniqueness vs Force for commonality Quantifying the impact Innovation impact vs Value potential Disruptive - disrupt the core Adjacent - change and expand Sustaining - incremental improvements EY Business Reference Model - Agile ( http://www.ey.com/GL/en/Services/Advisory/EY-t...